The Campus Sexual Violence Elimination (Campus SaVE) Act amends the Clery Act to encourage greater transparency and adds additional requirements for institutions to address and prevent sexual violence on campus. Campus SaVE is enforced by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights and applies to all colleges and universities that receive any federal funding, including student financial aid.

1. Campus SaVE requires colleges to be transparent about crimes of sexual violence on campus.

Prior to Campus SaVE’s enactment, institutions only had to keep track of forcible and non-forcible sex offenses (in addition to other crimes, such as robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, motor vehicle theft, and arson). Under Campus SaVE, institutions must also maintain statistics on dating violence, domestic violence, sexual assault, and stalking incidents. Each institution is also required to provide an explanation of its anti-sexual violence policies and procedures in its Annual Security Report, a report that includes statistics for crimes committed on and near campus over the past three years.

Campus SaVE requires that institutions provide reasonable accommodations and protective measures to survivors, whether or not they decide to report to law enforcement. It clarifies the types of accommodations and measures a school can provide, including changes to the survivor’s academic, living, transportation, or working situations. Institutions must also inform the victim of their right to obtain a no-contact or restraining order. Further, academic institutions must provide victims with contact information about existing services both on and off campus, including counseling, health care, mental health, victim advocacy, and legal assistance.

Campus SaVE requires institutions to provide education and awareness programs to enrolled students, including sexual violence prevention education. In order to provide necessary context for students participating in these programs, institutions must also provide clear definitions of awareness programs, bystander intervention, ongoing prevention and awareness, primary prevention, consent, and risk reduction—and an explanation of how these terms are being used for training and legal purposes. (Institutions may make this information available for all employees and prospective students.)

4. Colleges must have protocol for disciplinary proceedings and follow certain standards.

Institutions must set standards for disciplinary proceedings, including a description of all possible sanctions an institution might levy against an accused student. Campus SaVE requires that academic institutions conduct impartial disciplinary proceedings in a timely manner. Further, the institution must provide a range of protective measures offered to survivors during these proceedings.

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